


A Cat White As Snow

by red_clover_and_queen_annes_lace



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Death, Heavy Angst, Other, set during chat blanc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22551277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_clover_and_queen_annes_lace/pseuds/red_clover_and_queen_annes_lace
Summary: Nathalie reminisces on her memories of Adrien as she goes in search of Chat Blanc. Nathalie watched as Emilie Agreste killed herself with magic beyond her understanding. She watched as Gabriel Agreste descended into heartbroken insanity. She will not watch as tragedy turns Adrien to a monster as cold and pale as snow.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nathalie Sancoeur, Duusu & Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 11
Kudos: 91





	A Cat White As Snow

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve heard some speculation as to where Nathalie was in Chat Blanc so I figured I’d put out my theory. Comments are dearly appreciated!

It was the quiet that woke her.

It hadn’t been quiet in days. The city had been a cacophony of screaming, and rumbling explosions, and the groaning of buildings as they fell to the ground. She didn’t let herself hope it was all over. That the silence meant peace would return. There would be no over. Not until she was dead like everything else. Nathalie wasn’t quite sure why she wasn’t dead. Why fate had been so cruel as to spare her. 

She supposed it served her right. All along the one person she believed she was helping had been the person she was hurting beyond compare. All the destruction was her fault. She wished she had never told Gabriel that Adrien was Chat Noir. She wished she had never picked up the peacock miraculous. She wished she had never taken the damned job in the first place. 

Now it was all broken. She had been on the upper floor of the Agreste mansion watching the news. Watching as Chat Blanc had destroyed the city and turned Ladybug and Gabriel to crumbling stone statues. She had placed a hand over her miraculous, wondering if there was anything she could do. If she was strong enough to face the consequences of her own sins. At that moment a beam of destruction had hit the house, sending it collapsing on top of her. She should’ve been terrified. She wasn’t. She had figured long ago that she would die by the hands of an Agreste one way or another. She hadn’t expected those hand’s to be Adrien’s, but after everything he’d endured, no one was more justified to rid the world of her. 

Yet somehow she had survived. Something had slammed against her head and sent her flying through a window, where she had landed on the roof of a car. She was broken and bruised, but miraculously alive. For a while, she could feel it. Every shard of glass that pierced her skin, the ache of her broken ribs, the throbbing gash across her forehead. Then all she could feel was blood. Warm and sticky and her own, smeared across her skin and dripping down her face, gluing her eyes shut. Then there was nothing. Despite slipping in and out of consciousness, she hadn’t escaped the sounds. The sounds of panic and pain had enveloped her, and when they quieted she could hear the anguished cries of Chat Blanc. They were ragged and broken, in a way that a child’s voice should never be. 

She had wished for death then. How much could a person bleed before they died? Hadn’t she bled at least that much? She was already sick beyond repair. Couldn’t the universe give her this? Just let the world go quiet? Give her that mercy? Apparently not.

Now it was quiet. But there was also the weak warmth of sun on her face, and the feeling of water lapping against her skin. Death had not taken her yet. Nathalie lay still for a moment, trying to pry open her eyes. After a minute they opened, revealing an endless sea. She was still on the roof of a car, but the streets had flooded to the car’s height. Flooded with saltwater she decided, considering the sharp stinging of her injuries. 

At least the sky still looked normal. It was a clear pale blue, dappled with sunlight and drifting white ash. Without her glasses, the ash almost looked like snow. Nathalie didn’t have the energy to move, so she just lay there and pretended it was snowing. Pretended everything was fine. She had always loved the snow. Loved the way it covered the earth in a pure white blanket, erasing cracked pavement dying grass. It felt like the world was being born anew, cleansed by the crystalline cold. Adrien had loved the snow too. When he was younger they had taken him out in the garden after the first night of snow in his life. He had just barely learned to walk then, so he sat in the snow bundled half to death, staring at it in confusion. Emilie and Gabriel had laughed harder than she had ever seen them. Even she could feel giggles building in her chest. Sometimes Adrien would stick his little hand into the mounds of snow and give one of them a fistful of snow with a little bewildered “eh!” noise. It was probably the first gift he had ever given her.

When Adrien was seven he had set out to build the perfect snowman. After the first snow, he spent hours outside, trying to build his snowman. Nathalie had given him one of her old scarves to adorn it with. Gabriel had provided a scrapped hat design prototype. Emilie had been traveling. Adrien had been so proud of it. The boy had cried for hours after it melted. Neither she nor Gabriel had managed to comfort him. They even called Emilie to see if she could provide him any consolation. Finally, Nathalie had just held the sobbing boy in her lap, rubbing circles into his back and letting him wipe his tears on her sweater. Adrien had no memory of the incident. She almost doubted he had any memories anymore, none that weren’t tainted with poison and sorrow. Did he even remember how he had loved snow? How it felt to love? Something warm and liquid rolled down her cheek. She wasn’t sure if it was tears or blood. Maybe both.

Something heartbroken and old quieted the exhaustion and the pain that suspended her in an unmoving denial. That boy, the little boy who had once upon a time felt safe enough to cry in her arms was alone and traumatized because of her. This was her fault. She owed it to Adrien to at least try to save him. Or at least to finally let him be rid of the woman who put him through hell. Either way, she needed to find him. 

“Duusu?” She pleaded weakly into empty space. Without the power of the miraculous, she doubted she could even sit up. 

“Miss Nathalie?” Duusu responded from somewhere she couldn’t see. The little kwami sounded haunted, as if she hadn’t realized Nathalie was still alive. 

“Can you transform me?”

Duusu squeaked, “In this state, the strength from the miraculous wouldn’t last very long! You wouldn’t be able to use it for much longer than a few minutes before you would…”

“I have to try anyway.” Nathalie murmured, more to herself than Duusu. “Duusu-” the little kwami snuggled morosely against her fingers whimpering softly, “It’s been an honor to wield your miraculous, I’m sorry it couldn’t have been for good. Transform me.”

Magic engulfed her body. She found the pain was bearable as Mayura, and she swam to a building that was taller than the rapidly rising water. She pulled herself gracelessly onto the roof, now trembling with exhaustion and cold. She eased herself into a standing position, before immediately doubling over with pain and nausea. She vomited blood onto the ground, drops of red spattering across her shoes. It’s okay, she promised herself as she eased herself upright, “Just follow the destruction and this will all end, one way or another.”

She leaped weakly from building to building searching for Chat Blanc. She wasn’t subtle by any means, but she figured it did her no favors to be indiscreet in the first place, as finding him or being found by him would yield the same results. She couldn’t fight Adrien, even without her weakened physical state. She could never knowingly raise a hand against that boy. 

To her relief, she didn’t have far to travel as Chat Blanc found her. He landed lightly in front of her, his eyes pensive. His new appearance was unsettling, but beneath that, there was something so purely Adrien about the boy she couldn’t help but be comforted. Something about the way he held himself, and the look of his eyes. She pondered how she hadn’t figured out his identity sooner. 

“Little late to the fight birdy,” Adrien said to her in a voice that was so devoid of emotion she took a step back. “So who are you? Why would you ever help someone so heartless as my father?  
Nathalie’s strength waivered and her transformation dropped. She leaned heavily against a tall chimney.

“Nathalie,” Chat Blanc snarled before his voice settled to something humored and cruel, “Speaking of heartless.”

She flinched. Adrien knew how much she hated her last name. They never spoke of it. Oh how that had changed.

“Adrien,” she said in a voice so weak it was barely audible. 

One of his white cat ears twitched. “I’m not Adrien anymore.”

“You’re still Adrien to me.”

He took a threatening step forward. “Oh, you don’t get to say that. You do not get to waltz in here after everything and pretend you are some goddamned saint who understands who I am and what I’ve been through. You are not my family or my friend! You’re just my father’s little pet who was too weak to save me, or him, or Mom! So when I tell you that I am not Adrien anymore all you have any right to do is to sit there and fucking listen!”

Nathalie swallowed thickly, “You’re right.”

Adrien raised a masked eyebrow.

“You’re right that I was unable to save you, any of you. And that I have no right to tell you who you are because I never prioritized you enough to learn. And I am not a saint. I am not here to be any sort of savior if you don’t want one.”

She gagged and fell heavily to the floor, blood spewing from her lips. Adrien remained motionless, an emotion she couldn’t catch flitting briefly across his face. When the sickness had passed Nathalie wiped her mouth and stumbled to her feet.

“I am not here to save you if you don’t want to be,” she continued, rivulets of blood staining her chin. “I am here because I love you-” Adrien scoffed, “-and I want you to be happy in any way you can be. If that means destroying me with your powers and finally being rid of the woman who caused you so much pain then so be it.” 

He gave her a twisted smile, “Sounds pretty good to me.”

Her breath hitched.

“But Adrien if this- if this isn’t making you happy, maybe you would feel better detransformed. As only yourself, not Chat Blanc or Chat Noir. I could help you-” She reached for him gingerly.

“No!” He snarled at her, shoving Nathalie further away from him. “You don’t understand. You never will! You don’t now and you didn’t before!”

“I only want to help,” she pleaded, “If I don’t understand then teach me.”

Adrien looked at her. “This is all I have. I’ve destroyed my home. I’ve destroyed anyone who could ever actually help me. If I don’t have Chat Blanc then I don’t have anything.”

“You didn’t destroy your home. You just can’t find it.” Her voice strengthened, “You will never find a home as Chat Blanc. Because home is where there are people waiting for you with open arms. It is where you are free to love and be loved. Chat Blanc isn’t something that can be loved, because it’s only power. Adrien is loved, and he is forgiven. Adrien will find the home that Chat Blanc is so desperately trying to find.”

“And you’re insinuating that home is with you?” Adrien asked with exaggerated distaste. Behind it, she could hear genuine questioning.  
“Yes- no- God, Adrien I would like for it to be. But that choice is yours to make.” Adrien moved towards her absentmindedly. “ I am not the only one still out there who will welcome you as their own. Home is something that you make. If you would rather make your home with other people I only want your happiness and safety. But that home can only be made as Adrien. Chat Blanc is powerful, but he is alone. Adrien doesn’t have to be.”

Adrien looked contemplative, still moving imperceptively closer as she spoke. His eyes were wide and curious as a cat’s.

“Whatever it is that will give you back any of the happiness my actions took away from you, I swear Adrien I will do anything to ensure it.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” Adrien asked, continuing to draw closer, “Because you feel you owe me something.”

“I told you,” she said, “I’m here because I love you. I want you to grow up, and fall in love, and live a long and happy life. I only want to help.” She opened her arms, “Please come home?”

Adrien stepped gingerly into her embrace, standing for a moment unmoving, before encircling his arms around her. He buried his face in her shoulder. Tears flowed freely down Nathalie’s cheeks, “Oh, Adrien-”

“Thank you-” Adrien whispered in a voice gentle with emotion, his hands pressed against her back. Something blisteringly cold spilled into her skin, and she felt her body go cold and brittle. She watched her legs and back turn to grey stone. Adrien’s palm was filled with pulsing white light. He looked at her with emotionless eyes, stepping away from where Nathalie stood, the feeling rapidly draining from her body. “But the name’s Chat Blanc.” 

Then came the silence Nathalie had been so desperately hoping for.


End file.
